The first one to move had been Luke. He used the dark energy to protect his whole body. Still, he suddenly felt a sting on both his arms, and he didn’t like that. He blinked once thanks to that, and when he opened his eyes, he saw his arms in the hands of the monster.

"As expected of a power up, mines pale in comparison to that," Luke said while sweating cold.

The monster threw Luke’s arms upward and then destroyed them with a single blast of energy. It wasn’t like Luke was expecting to recover them and reattach them in order to save time. Still, seeing his arms being destroyed like that was rather unpleasant. Luke summoned from his dimension some crystals that made him heal his arms almost instantly. Still, when that happened, the monster now took all of his limbs at the same time. Luke had planned to put up a better fight before he started to call the big guns, but it seemed that things wouldn’t go the way he had planned. Without any other choice, Luke called upon ten of his mana clones, and then he absorbed them instantly. Once that happened, Luke’s power increased tremendously, and he charged at the enemy. Thanks to that, he was able to see the movements of the enemy, and by seeing it, he just saw the final movement because soon he lost his sight. Luke was forced to stop. Even though he had Clairvoyance... He did so because, with that skill, he saw the enemy crushing his eyeballs.

"You are going to regret this..." Luke said and then disappeared.

Luke reappeared soon after, and then the mana in his body exploded. He was completely healed as well. The monster felt his face being punched hundreds of times in the next moment, and then his neck moved slightly. He recalled that Aivern had used a similar technique, but that much was nothing. Still, the attack achieved Luke’s goal. It made the enemy look to the side for a moment while he did something else...

Luke summoned his sword and then used Meteor Sword, making several of the rain over the monster, but the creature only raised one of its arms and blocked all of them. It didn’t even work to make the enemy move a bit. Luke was using the mana equivalent of thirty clones, and yet... Still, the enemy frowned when he felt the dark energy inside Luke increasing tremendously. He did something, and the enemy didn’t even see... in the next moment. Luke charged toward the monster and attacked with his sword. There was no time difference in time between the first and the final movement, and yet, the monster moved its arm to block the attack. However, it was pushed back down, and then a wound appeared on its body.

The wound quickly closed since the monster’s body wasn’t actually made of flesh. Still, it made the creature wonder how that was possible... He knew that Luke could use mana clones, but he was on the limit of what his body could handle. In fact, it won’t be weird if he drops dead in the next five minutes, pushing his body beyond his limits like that. And yet, he gained another boost. There was only one explanation... He was absorbing the dark energy somehow, and he used the first attack as a distraction. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The monster realized all that before Luke could even launch the next attack, and despite that thinking speed, Luke still managed to kick him in the face and send him flying in the opposite direction. Before he could stop moving, Luke passed by him and then swung his sword, but this time the monster turned around and grabbed the weapon with both hands. A single touch made that broke into pieces. Still, Luke ignored that and kicked the monster’s neck, pushing him to the side again.

While he was moving again, the enemy looked at Luke and saw his eyes had turned red due to the rage he was feeling. Using that much mana beyond his body, absorbing that much dark energy so fast... After he got his eyes smashed, he decided that he would kill the shadow, even if he had to die.

The monster suddenly created a massive sphere of dark energy and fired a beam from it toward Luke. He used both hands again to use yin and yang Cannon. That was what he called using mana and dark energy at the same time. Both attacks canceled each other, and the explosion made them move away from each other. The shadow used that chance to gather more dark energy, but he also felt Luke doing the same. This time... He was as fast as him.

"He will lose his mind...." the monster thought.

From the monster’s perspective, that was utterly useless. Even if Luke were to kill the monster, he would be reborn eventually as long as that dimension is filled with the dark thoughts of the deceased. Luke couldn’t possibly hope to obtain and control all of that energy, even for the monster itself. It took him many years to be able to control all that power while maintaining his sense of self while the voices screamed inside his head... And yet, Luke wasn’t stopping.

When the monster approached to see what Luke was doing, he saw shadow clones being absorbed and passing the dark energy to Luke. His body was already filled with cracks that emitted light blue and purple glows. At that point in time, he had turned into a bomb of mana and dark energy. Still, all that absurd amount of energy still was obeying him and creating a weird-looking armor. The purple armor even had something like a tail, and the place covering his fingers had gotten long enough to look like claws. Luke’s head was trembling while trying to control all that. When it seemed that the rage would take over his mind, Luke shouted and made the dimension tremble with all his might. After that, he looked at the monster and charged... He was still there.